Quick

I will post this picture quickly before it changes, so that I can look back at the end of the season and dream of what might have been :)
Being a West Ham fan you have to take these small moments of excitement when you get them.
Much as I hope that we can stay around the top places, experience brings a sense of reality knowing that the big guns will overwhelm us and a top ten finish is what we should really be aiming for.
After the poor start with 2 defeats in the first 3 games you felt it was going to be another season of struggle, but it seems that this year's new faces have all hit the ground running and improved us beyond recognition.
If Nolan hadn't picked up his injury after the Tottenham defeat would Downing have been moved into the centre? this has turned out to be a revelation and the fact that Fat Sam has actually given game time to his new signings when in previous seasons they usually end up as bench warmers has been a pleasant surprise.
Sakho and Valencia have the pace to trouble any defence and hopefully Andy Carroll will be given longer to get over all his injury problems because at the moment we really don't need him.
Of course we play Man City next week which will be a true test of how far we have improved, a point would be great, a win would see me jumping around a bit :) but I'd just settle for us competing with the likes of City and hopefully making Upton park a place where visiting teams knew they were going to get a game.

Thanks

Thanks everyone, 100,000 Page Views in 4 years and 4 months.
Must have put something worth looking at here :)
I must apologise for a lack of content recently, but at least the predictions competitions keeps me coming back every week, so stay tuned.

Premier Predictions (Week 8)

This International break seems to be going on forever. But it's back to normality for the next 4 weeks.
Games over 3 days again, 7 Saturday, 2 Sunday and 1 Monday.

Man City v Tottenham
Arsenal v Hull
Burnley v West Ham
C Palace v Chelsea
Everton v Aston Villa
Newcastle v Leicester
Southampton v Sunderland
QPR v Liverpool
Stoke v Swansea
West Brom v Man Utd

Good luck all :)

Premier Predictions (Week 7)

Wow!! doesn't time fly, Wednesday already, so slightly late here's the week 7 fixtures, the games are spread over 2 days this weekend 6 on Saturday and 4 on Sunday.
Top game of the week is Sunday's Chelsea v Arsenal, will Chelsea bang 6 past them again? especially as Arsenal have lost most of their midfield even before taking on the Turks tonight, could be more if Costa can manage 2 games in the week.

Hull v C Palace
Leicester v Burnley
Liverpool v West Brom
Sunderland v Stoke
Swansea v Newcastle
Aston Villa v Man City

Man Utd v Everton
Chelsea v Arsenal
Tottenham v Southampton
West Ham v QPR

Good luck all, especially Bio, Gobby and Paul who are all looking for their first win of this season :)

Premier Predictions (Week 6)

Week 6 already, this week the fixtures are back to 3 days,
8 on Saturday and 1 each on Sunday and Monday.

A few biggies this week with West Ham going to the backfiring reds, the North London derby and the Stanley Park North vs South battle, plus Will Villa do a Mourinho and park the bus? :)

Liverpool v Everton
Chelsea v Aston Villa
C Palace v Leicester
Hull v Man City
Man Utd v West Ham
Southampton v QPR
Sunderland v Swansea
Arsenal v Tottenham
West Brom v Burnley
Stoke v Newcastle

Good luck all :)

Happy Days

West Ham 3 Liverpool 1

Always great to see the Hammers win.
But any win over the Scouses is always extra special for me :)
Lots of Liverpool supporting relatives and friends who love to give, but just can't handle receiving :)

Fantasy Footie Etc

An overdue update on the blog leagues :)
Four weeks played so far and the RFC boys are looking good in the Telegraph game.
Paul and Longy have started well in the FPL game.
And I'm having a nightmare in both games :(

TFF - NBTF (40 Teams) - Overall Position - 1424
1 Richard - RR6 193
2 Richard - RR5 187
3 Andrew - Tinkerman Fore 185
4 Ryan - T-boy NEFI 184
5 Richard - Another fantasy Team 183
6 Andrew - Tiki-Taka-Tree 182
7 Lee - Chip Shop Boys 177
8 Rob - Bob's The Daddy 173
9 Shane - lewies lions 173
10 Ryan - Ryan's Rovers 171

FPL - Nothing Better Than Football (5 Teams) - Week 2 Start
1 Paul - Wildcard United 118
2 Longy - CFCLongy 116
2 Gary - Unreal Madrid 116
4 Martin - Baher 108
5 Lee - Play To Win 84

The NBTF Predictions league has started well with a record 8 players, Newcomer Dave leads, and 4 of us have yet to get off the mark (including me) :(
Just checked my position in FISO goals and found I won week 3, but I forgot to post last week so have dropped to 52nd :(
Personally I'm not confident of an improvement this week, the Telegraph site wouldn't let me make changes earlier and I missed the deadline in the FPL game to tweek my team :(

Premier Predictions (Week 5)

Here we go again, 6 games on Saturday, 4 on Sunday.
A few big games this week with City v Chelsea on Sunday, Arsenal going to form team Villa and the Hammers hoping to upset the scouses :)

QPR v Stoke
Aston Villa v Arsenal
Burnley v Sunderland
Newcastle v Hull
Swansea v Southampton
West Ham v Liverpool

Leicester v Man Utd
Tottenham v West Brom
Everton v C Palace
Man City v Chelsea

Premier Predictions (Week 4)

Sorry chaps nearly forgot, Internationals getting in the way :)
Great win for England though :)
8 games on Saturday, with 1 each on Sunday and Monday.

Arsenal v Man City
Chelsea v Swansea
C Palace v Burnley
Southampton v Newcastle
Stoke v Leicester
Sunderland v Tottenham
West Brom v Everton
Liverpool v Aston Villa
Man Utd v QPR
Hull v West Ham

Good luck all :)

Premier Predictions (Week 3)

Last set of fixtures before our first "international break" of the season.
7 games on Saturday and 3 more on Sunday.

Burnley v Man Utd
Man City v Stoke
Newcastle v C Palace
QPR v Sunderland
Swansea v West Brom
West Ham v Southampton
Everton v Chelsea

Aston Villa v Hull
Tottenham v Liverpool
Leicester v Arsenal

9 points has been enough to win the first 2 weeks, so hopefully we can all start hitting double figures :)
Good luck all.

Fantasy Football

Thanks to all those who joined the TFF version :)
40 Teams in this year so far.

Here's the top 10 after week 1

Good starts by Ryan and Rick, I'm hoping at least one of my teams stays in contention :)

Apologies to Longy after I made an error on the FPL version, meaning we only start scoring in week 2, but as there is only 3 of us it shouldn't matter too much :)

Premier Predictions (Week 2)

Here we go with week number 2,
games over 3 days again with the first biggy of the year on Monday with Liverpool going to Man City.

Aston Villa v Newcastle
Chelsea v Leicester
C Palace v West Ham
Southampton v West Brom
Swansea v Burnley
Everton v Arsenal
Hull v Stoke
Tottenham v QPR
Sunderland v Man Utd
Man City v Liverpool

Nearly There

The new Premier league season starts today, and another 9 months of footy action :)
In my opinion it's going to go much like last season, the title contenders in a league of their own, a small handful of teams who should be safe and might get a Europa league place, and the rest who will all be trying to stay up.
Man City and Chelsea look the most likely to finish as Champions with Arsenal, Liverpool and Man Utd fighting for the Champions league places, Everton, Tottenham and maybe Newcastle expecting a top ten finish and everyone else hoping to stay clear of the bottom 3.
Obvious choices for the bottom 3 would be Burnley, QPR and post-Pulis Palace but who knows, West ham have signed some reasonable players but will Fat Sam actually play them? 3 new strikers + Cole and Carroll (when and if he's fit) fighting for the dubious honour of playing up front alone with no support, but he might have a change of tactics??

Still chance to join the fantasy leagues (see link), thanks to all those that have joined the TFF one, but the FPL one only has 2 at the moment (me and my son, and he'll probably lose interest after a week or so) so that's not going that well.
Prediction comp open all season, hopefully those that have entered this week will see it out :)

So here we go again :)

Premier Predictions (Week 1)

Ta Da!! Here we go again, Premier prediction time. Week 1 of about 38?

All readers welcome (anyone new, just let me know your name or alias and the team you support so I can keep track of your score in the super duper league table on the right).

Usual rules, I post the weeks fixtures, you post your Predictions in comments - just copy/paste the fixtures and add your score :)
3 Points for a correct score, 1 point for a correct result (Home, away, draw), 0 points if totally wrong or if the game is postponed.

The league table will be decided on -
1st Outright weekly wins,
2nd Shared wins,
3rd Total points scored.

This weeks games - 7 on Saturday, 2 on Sunday and 1 on Monday

Man Utd v Swansea
Leicester v Everton
QPR v Hull
Stoke v Aston Villa
West Brom v Sunderland
West Ham v Tottenham
Arsenal v C Palace
Liverpool v Southampton
Newcastle v Man City
Burnley v Chelsea

.. and good luck to all who take part :)

Summer Transfers 2014

This will be far from a finished list, as the transfer window doesn't close until the 1st September.
I will update it every couple of days.

Here's the transfer news so far (up to 29/09/14), lots of movement including some big fees mostly paid to Southampton.
Fees paid are a bit of a mystery this year with lots of * undisclosed fees (probably to hide them from UEFA and the tax man).
The big 5 have been the biggest spenders although most of their deals have been public. Angel Di Maria's £59.7m is the largest so far pushing Man Utd in front of Liverpool on the overall spending.

Most players in - Hull 12, Leicester 11, Liverpool 11, Swansea 10, West Brom 10
Most players out - Chelsea 37, Tottenham 25, Liverpool 24, C Palace 22, Man Utd 22, Southampton 22
Most Money Paid * - Man Utd £150m, Liverpool £116.8m, Chelsea £90.9m, Arsenal £77m, Southampton £57.9m, Man City £51.5m
Most Money in * - Southampton £96.5m, Chelsea £77.5m, Liverpool £75m, Man Utd £26.5m, Man City £24m, Tottenham £18m
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arsenal

In: 9 (£77m)
Alexis Sánchez, Calum Chambers, Mathieu Debuchy, David Ospina, Elias Chatzitheodoridis, Hugo Keto, Ben Sheaf, Georgios Spanoudakis, Danny Welbeck

Out: 16 (£17.5m)
Thomas Vermaelen, Johan Djourou, Thomas Eisfeld, Zak Ansah, Lukasz Fabianski, Zachari Fagan, Bacary Sagna, Chuks Aneke, Wellington Silva (Loan), Benik Afobe (Loan), Carl Jenkinson (Loan), Nicklas Bendtner, Daniel Boateng, Chu-Young Park, Leander Siemann, Jon Toral (Loan)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aston Villa

In: 7 (£0m)
Joe Cole, Tom Leggett, Isaac Nehemie, Philippe Senderos, Kieran Richardson, Aly Cissokho, Tom Cleverley (Loan)

Out: 19 (£0.25m)
Jordan Bowery, Marc Albrighton, Nicklas Helenius (Loan), Yacouba Sylla (Loan), Jed Steer (Loan), Nathan Delfouneso, Antonio Luna (Loan), Samir Carruthers, Daniel Johnson (Loan), Aidan Grant, Andras Stieber, Aleksander Tonev (Loan), Janoi Donacien (Loan), Joe Bennett (Loan), Gary Gardner (Loan), Karim El Ahmadi, Michael Drennan (Loan), Chris Herd (Loan), Callum Robinson (Loan)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Burnley

In: 8 (£4.5m)
Lukas Jutkiewicz, Marvin Sordell, Michael Kightly, Matt Gilks, Steven Reid, Matt Taylor, Michael Keane (Loan), Nathaniel Chalobah (Loan), George Boyd

Out: 15 (£0m)
David Edgar, Joseph Mills, Junior Stanislas, Chris Baird, Kyle Brownhill, Alex Coleman, Luke Conlan, Jack Errington, Micah Evans, Luke Gallagher, Nick Liversedge, Archie Love, Brian Stock, Keith Treacy, Luke O'Neill (Loan)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chelsea

In: 6 (£90.9m)
Diego Costa, Cesc Fabregas, Filipe Luis, Mario Pasalic, Didier Drogba, Loic Remy

Out: 37 (£77.5m)
David Luiz, Romelu Lukaku, Demba Ba, Patrick van Aanholt, Ashley Cole, Sam Hutchinson, Frank Lampard, Tomas Kalas (Loan), Wallace (Loan), Thorgan Hazard (Loan), Bertrand Traore (Loan), Lucas Piazon (Loan), Cristián Cuevas (Loan), Mario Pasalic (Loan), Oriol Romeu (Loan), John Swift (Loan), Gael Kakuta (Loan), Ryan Bertrand (Loan), Kenneth Omeruo (Loan), Billy Clifford, Samuel Eto'o, Henrique Hilario, Milan Lalkovic, Adam Nditi, Daniel Pappoe, Jhon Pírez, Mark Schwarzer, Christian Atsu (Loan), Victor Moses (Loan), Josh McEachran (Loan), Marko Marin (Loan), George Saville, Fernando Torres (Loan), Marco van Ginkel (Loan), Patrick Bamford (Loan), Nathaniel Chalobah (Loan), Jamal Blackman (Loan),
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crystal Palace

In: 8 (£7.9m)
Fraizer Campbell, Chris Kettings, Brede Hangeland, Martin Kelly, Wilfried Zaha (Loan), James McArthur, Zeki Fryers, Andrew Johnson

Out: 22 (£1.4m)
Jose Campana, Neil Alexander, Kagisho Dikgacoi, Dean Moxey, Aaron Wilbraham, Jonathan Parr, Ross Fitzsimons, Osman Sow, Alex Wynter (Loan), Kwesi Appiah (Loan), Jack Hunt (Loan), Lewis Price (Loan), Stephen Dobbie (Loan), Danny Gabbidon, Ibra Sekajja, Quade Taylor, Derek Tieku, Tom King, Alistair Gordon, Jonny Williams (Loan), Jerome Binnom Williams (Loan), Owen Garvan (Loan)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everton

In: 7 (£33m)
Romelu Lukaku, Gareth Barry, Brendan Galloway, Muhamed Besic, Christian Atsu (Loan), Samuel Eto'o, David Henen (Loan)

Out: 8 (£0m)
Magaye Gueye, John Lundstram (Loan), Matthew Kennedy (Loan), Mason Springthorpe, Ibou Touray, Apostolos Vellios, Hallam Hope (Loan), Shane Duffy
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hull City

In: 12 (£33.9m)
Jake Livermore, Robert Snodgrass, Andrew Robertson, Harry Maguire, Tom Ince, Karim Rossi, Michael Dawson, Hatem Ben Arfa (Loan), Mohamed Diame, Gaston Ramirez (Loan), Abel Hernandez, Brian Lenihan

Out: 15 (£15m)
Shane Long, Matty Fryatt, Paul McElroy, Conor Henderson, Cameron Stewart, Jack Barlow, Mark Oxley (Loan), Conor Townsend (Loan), Joe Dudgeon (Loan), Nick Proschwitz, Abdoulaye Faye, Robert Koren, Paul Dudgeon, Eldin Jakupovic, George Boyd
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leicester City

In: 11 (£10m)
Leonardo Ulloa, Matthew Upson, Marc Albrighton, Jack Barmby, Louis Rowley, Ben Hamer, Esteban Cambiasso, Kris Scott, Tom Lawrence, Nick Powell (Loan), Danny Simpson

Out: 21 (£0m)
Lloyd Dyer, George Taft, Zak Whitbread, Neil Danns, Ben Frempah, Paul Gallagher (Loan), Martyn Waghorn, Sean St Ledger, Kieran Kennedy, Adam Dawson, Jak McCourt, Marcel Barrington, Jacob Blyth, Michael Cain, Harry Panayiotou, James Pearson, Alie Sesay, Adam Smith, Marko Futacs, Conrad Logan (Loan), Ryan Watson (Loan)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Liverpool

In: 11 (£116.8m)
Adam Lallana, Lazar Markovic, Dejan Lovren, Alberto Moreno, Divock Origi, Emre Can, Rickie Lambert, Lawrence Vigouroux, Kevin Stewart, Javier Manquillo (Loan), Mario Balotelli

Out: 24 (£75m)
Luis Suarez, Divock Origi (Loan), Villyan Bijev, Jakub Sokolik, Luis Alberto (Loan), Iago Aspas (Loan), Andre Wisdom (Loan), Conor Coady, Pepe Reina, Brad Smith (Loan), Yalany Baio, Yusuf Mersin, Craig Roddan, Stephen Sama, Martin Kelly, Michael Ngoo, Joao Carlos Teixeira (Loan), Tiago Ilori (Loan), Jack Robinson, Jordon Ibe (Loan), Daniel Agger, Krisztian Adorjan, Sebastian Coates (Loan), Oussama Assaidi (Loan)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Manchester City

In: 7 (£51.5m)
Eliaquim Mangala, Fernando, Willy Caballero, Bacary Sagna, Bruno Zuculini, Frank Lampard (Loan), Bruno Zuculini

Out: 20 (£24m)
Javi Garcia, Jack Rodwell, Gareth Barry, Costel Pantilimon, Joleon Lescott, Alex Henshall, Ellis Plummer, Marcos Lopes (Loan), Reece Wabara, Thomas Agyiri, Kieran Kennedy, George Swan, Alex Tchuimeni-Nimely, Greg Leigh (Loan), Jason Denayer (Loan), Devante Cole (Loan),Emyr Huws, Micah Richards (Loan), Alvaro Negredo (Loan), John Guidetti (Loan)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Manchester United

In: 7 (£150m)
Luke Shaw, Ander Herrera, Vanja Milinkovic, Marcos Rojo, Angel Di Maria, Daley Blind, Radamel Falcao

Out: 22 (£26.5m)
Alexander Buttner, Patrice Evra, Bebe, Jack Barmby, Feredrico Macheda, Nemanja Vidic, Louis Rowley, Rio Ferdinand, Vanja Milinkovic (Loan), Sam Byrne, Ryan Giggs, Jack Rudge, Angelo Henriquez (Loan), Nani (Loan), Wilfried Zaha (Loan), Danny Welbeck, Tom Lawrence, Nick Powell (Loan), Michael Keane (Loan), Javier Hernandez (Loan), Tom Cleverley (Loan), Shinji Kagawa
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newcastle United

In: 9 (£30.8m)
Rémy Cabella, Emmanuel Riviere, Siem de Jong, Daryl Janmaat, Ayoze Perez, Jack Colback, Facundo Ferreyra (Loan), Jamaal Lascelles, Karl Darlow

Out: 18 (£12m)
Mathieu Debuchy, James Tavernier, Dan Gosling, Jonathan Mitchell, Conor Newton, Romain Amalfitano, Sylvain Marveaux (Loan), Jamaal Lascelles (Loan), Karl Darlow (Loan), Adam Campbell (Loan), Shola Ameobi, Steven Logan, Brandon Miele, Jonathan Mitchell, Michael Richardson, Freddie Woodman (Loan), Hatem Ben Arfa (Loan), Mapou Yanga Mbiwa (Loan)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Queens Park Rangers

In: 9 (£28.5m)
Steven Caulker, Jordan Mutch, Mauricio Isla (Loan), Rio Ferdinand, Leroy Fer, Jack Robinson, Alex McCarthy, Niko Kranjcar (Loan), Sandro

Out: 19 (£10.5m)
Yossi Benayoun, Tom Hitchcock, Aaron Hughes, Esteban Granero, Gary O'Neil, Mo Shariff, Angelo Balanta, Hogan Ephraim, Andrew Johnson, Stéphane Mbia, Luke Young, Joe Lumley (Loan), Julio Cesar, Jack Robinson (Loan), Dylan Carreiro, Danny Simpson, Andrew Johnson, Loic Remy, Michael Petrasso (Loan)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Southampton

In: 9 (£57.9m)
Dusan Tadic, Fraser Forster, Graziano Pelle, Ryan Bertrand (Loan), Saphir Taider (Loan), Florin Gardos, Shane Long, Sadio Mane, Toby Alderweireld (Loan)

Out: 22 (£96.5m)
Luke Shaw,  Adam Lallana,  Dejan Lovren, Calum Chambers, Rickie Lambert, Dani Osvaldo (Loan), Tom Leggett, Isaac Nehemie, Danny Fox, Andy Robinson, Lee Barnard, Matt Young, Jonathan Forte, Jordan Turnbull (Loan), Joe Curtis, Guily Do Prado, Andreas Sony, Billy Sharp, Artur Boruc (Loan), Jack Stephens (Loan), Jos Hooiveld (Loan), Gaston Ramirez (Loan)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stoke City

In: 7 (£3m)
Bojan Krkic, Dionatan Teixeira, Mame Biram Diouf, Phil Bardsley, Steve Sidwell, Victor Moses (Loan), Oussama Assaidi (Loan)

Out: 15 (£0m)
Michael Kightly, Jordan Keane, Ed Sanders, Karim Rossi, James Alabi (Loan), Juan Agudelo, Lucas Dawson, Matthew Etherington, Kevin Gomez-Nieto, Ben Heneghan, Jordan Richardson, Jamie Ness (Loan), Cameron Jerome, Ryan Shotton (Loan), Brek Shea (Loan)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunderland

In: 9  (£10m)
Jack Rodwell, Patrick van Aanholt, Jordi Gómez, Billy Jones, Costel Pantilimon, Santiago Vergini (Loan), Will Buckley, Sebastian Coates (Loan), Ricardo Alvarez (Loan)

Out: 19 (£2.1m)
Ignacio Scocco, Phil Bardsley, Jack Colback, Craig Gardner,  Billy Knott, John Egan,  Kieren Westwood, Louis Laing, Reece Noble, Jordan Pickford (Loan)El-Hadji Ba (Loan), Carlos Cuéllar, Andrea Dossena, Jordan Laidler, Alejandro Rodriguez Gorrin, Oscar Ustari, David Vaughan, Jordan Watson, Scott Harrison (Loan)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Swansea City

In: 10 (£5.5m)
Jefferson Montero, Marvin Emnes, Stephen Kingsley, Lukasz Fabianski, Bafétimbi Gomis, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Federico Fernandez, James Demetriou, Modu Barrow, Giancarlo Gallifuoco

Out: 16 (£15.7m)
Ben Davies, Michel Vorm, Gwion Edwards, Alejandro Pozuelo, Thomas Atyeo, Daniel Alfei (Loan), Michu (Loan), Chico Flores, Leroy Lita, Jernade Meade, David Ngog, Darnel Situ, Jose Canas, Alex Bray (Loan), Kris Scott, Alan Tate (Loan)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tottenham Hotspur

In: 6 (£19m)
Ben Davies, Michel Vorm, Eric Dier, DeAndre Yedlin, Federico Fazio, Benjamin Stambouli

Out: 25 (£18m)
Jake Livermore, Heurelho Gomes, Lawrence Vigouroux, Kevin Stewart, Darren McQueen, Gylfi Sigurdsson , Grant Hall (Loan) , Alex Pritchard (Loan), Kenny McEvoy (Loan), Iago Falque, Shaquile Coulthirst (Loan), Jordan Archer (Loan), Giancarlo Gallifuoco, Cameron Lancaster, Roman Michael-Percil, Jonathan Miles, DeAndre Yedlin (Loan), Michael Dawson, Ryan Fredericks (Loan), Giancarlo Gallifuoco, Sandro, Jonathan Obika, Cameron Lancaster, Lewis Holtby (Loan), Zeki Fryers
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
West Bromwich Albion

In: 10 (£11.5m)
Brown Ideye, Sebastien Pocognoli, Craig Gardner, Joleon Lescott, Chris Baird, Andre Wisdom (Loan), Cristian Gamboa, Jason Davidson, Georgios Samaras, Sebastian Blanco

Out: 10 (£2m)
George Thorne, Billy Jones, Liam Ridgewell, Steven Reid, Cameron Gayle, Donervon Daniels (Loan), Scott Allan, Zoltan Gera, Diego Lugano, Nicolas Anelka
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
West Ham United

In: 9 (£22.75m)
Enner Valencia, Aaron Cresswell, Cheikhou Kouyate, Mauro Zarate, Diego Poyet, Carl Jenkinson (Loan), Diafra Sakho, Morgan Amalfitano, Alex Song (Loan)

Out: 16 (£3.5m)
Ben Sheaf, Joe Cole, Matt Taylor, Stephen Henderson, Robert Girdlestone, Raphael Spiegel (Loan), George Moncur (Loan), Jack Collison, Alou Diarra, Callum Driver, George McCartney, Jordan Spence, Ravel Morrison (Loan), Sean Maguire (Loan), Matthias Fanimo (Loan), Mohamed Diame--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fantasy Football 2014/15

Although this didn't really take off last year, I'll give it another go :)
I've set up leagues for Nothing Better Than Football "NBTF"
in the Premier league game and the Telegraph game.
If you would like to join either, here are the details -

Fantasy Premier League 2014/15
http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb.html
League name: Nothing Better Than Football
Code to join this league: 5969-597595

The Premier league runs it's own game "Fantasy Premier League" and it is free to play.
You choose a squad of 15 players in your budget, then pick a starting XI for each game, transfers are available during the season - 1 is free, anymore cost you points, wildcards are available twice a season to let you ship out several players at once if half your squad get sold to Real Madrid in January.
You can only have one team each, but you can put it in multiple leagues.
(I've updated this due to cock up on my part (oops) starts in week 2 now)
-----------

Telegraph Fantasy Football 2014/15
http://fantasyfootball.telegraph.co.uk/
League name: NBTF
PIN: 8072532

The Telegraph game tends to be the most popular amongst Fantasy football managers as you can tinker away all season with 30 transfers allowed and make changes to your team right up till the first kick-off of the day. You can have as many teams as you like, the first team is free but if you want more you can upgrade by paying a fee, the more teams you have the cheaper it is.
Many different cash prizes if your good enough.
(if you decide to join, I'll limit it to 5 teams per person max

The Premier league game is open to everyone worldwide (as there are no cash prizes), sadly the Telegraph game is UK residents only :(

World Wide Webb

This should be a job even he can't get wrong?

Pick any from this list to explain the latest diabolical reffing decision.

He's Blind
He's F***ing useless
He's a Liverpool fan
He's a Chelsea fan
The lino gave it
The 4th Official gave it
He was looking at something else
He doesn't speak the language
She's a woman

New Season

Greetings all :)
The new Premier season is only 10 days away and it's time to get fired up after the short break.
Of course the new season actually started during the World cup so there hasn't really been a summer break, Celtic are already out of the Champions league along with several other British teams.
Hull will play their second Europa league game tonight hoping to at least make it to the regular season and get a few Sunday kick offs.

The lower leagues kick off tomorrow night with Blackburn v Cardiff, and the rest start on Saturday.
Interesting that the footie authorities have come out big against betting by footballers but allow the leagues to be sponsored by Skybet?
My local side Southend open with a glamour trip to Accrington Stanley (who are they?) at least all the new signings will get a chance to meet each other :)

On Sunday the first big game takes place with the Charity Shield game between Arsenal and Man City, although it's now known as the Ronald McDonald Community Shield (fries with that?) not sure if the money goes to charity anymore? probably not.

Predictions competition will be back in the next few days, plus an invite to join the NBTF Fantasy football leagues for anyone who's interested.
I'm currently compiling a list of the Premier league in's and out's to see who's been splashing the cash and to see if certain teams still have enough players left?
.. quick joke - The Premier league have announced they will be using vanishing spray this season after a successful trial at Southampton football club :)

World Cup Predictions (Part 6) SF+3rd+F

4 More games to go, here's the semi final line up.

Brazil v Germany
Argentina v Holland

3rd Place play off - Brazil v Holland
Final - Germany v Argentina

Post when you like before kick off's :)
* updated

Update - The Final Table :)

World Cup Predictions (Part 5) QF

Quarter Finals start Friday :)
These look harder to predict than the last round :(
Germany France has a bit of history and assuming France drop Giroud could be a tight match.
The in form team Colombia face the stuttering home team, if Neymar is fit and the ref plays ball Brazil might get through?
Argentina were lucky to get through against the dull Swiss team and I expect a similar game against the Belgians, who still don't know their best first XI.
The Nether Nether Hollandaise Dutch should have enough to finally beat the over performing Costa Rican's but you nether know :)

France v Germany
Brazil v Colombia
Argentina v Belgium
Netherlands v Costa Rica

Good luck all :)